Tag Archives: die

This is a commercial begging for your help. It doesn’t involve a Sarah McLaughlin song, a puppy with one eye, Sally Struthers, or a starving child. Without the usual ingredients, I’m not sure it will work. So, I’m helping by spreading the word.

Glorious Treasures shall be showered upon you!

It does involve a band stuck venturing out into a world that they don’t understand. The warriors of Dethlehem have traveled in & out of Ghorusalem defeating all manner of orcs, ogres, trolls, & wizards; taming flying dragons; losing & gaining comrades along the way. They are ready to conquer the evil plaguing your land, but they need gold in order to complete their quest.

Their magical horse needs new shoes, and fuel… and a chariot to carry all of their necessary battle gear. In exchange for your allegiance and gold, you will be rewarded with protection from all manner of evil and special unique treasures.

I wish I was done. Perhaps this blog will wrap up all of my current thoughts on the subject. Thanks for hanging in there, my friends. And, I have received some comments on Facebook at Pittsburgh Beat, please comment here too! Thanks to Trista & Dave for not being shy. If you have no idea what I mean, this is a follow-up to my last two posts…

What You’re Really Swallowing
In most restaurants, after 8 p.m. or so, all the coffee is decaf because no one wants to clean two different coffeepots. I’ll bring out a tray with 12 coffees on it and give some to the customers who ordered regular, others to the ones who ordered decaf. But they’re all decaf.
—Charity Ohlund

Ridiculous. What’s so hard about telling people of this policy, or cleaning an extra coffee pot? Don’t they have dish washers for this kind of thing? Any kind of secrecy is just wrong. Granted, the opposite would be much worse for someone with a sensitivity to caffeine… but according to this butthole, it happens quite regularly. Is it too much to expect to get what you order? Really? I work hard for my money just like you, and ought to get what I want when I spend in your workplace.

What We Lie About
If you’re a vegetarian and you ask if we use vegetable stock, I’m going to say yes, even if we don’t. You’ll never know the difference.

I like that this is from someone anonymous. Whoever you are, please take comfort in the fact that you are one of the lowest forms of human life on the planet and that there are not too many out there worse than you. You’re sick. You have a mental illness of some sort or a form of antisocial personality disorder… specifically the following symptoms:

Apparent lack of remorse or empathy; inability to care about hurting others

Persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social rules, obligations, and norms

This is a serious illness, and I implore you to seek help. This is just completely unacceptable behavior towards your fellow man, besides not doing your job correctly or with any sort of pride or responsibility.

I’m certainly not a vegetarian. In fact, serve up any animal that’s not shellfish, an insect, or having an opposable thumb, and I’ll most likely eat it or at least try it. I love red meat… and white meat too… but there is not much better out there meat-wise than a nice steak, roast, or even a burger. PETA annoys me to no end.

Still, I respect their life choices, life style, and dietary needs. I have several friends and acquaintances that are vegetarian or vegan. It doesn’t matter if their diet is because of personal choices, dietary needs, religious beleifs, or allergies. If I know they’re coming to my house for anything or if I’m taking food to a common event with them… I go out of my way to make sure that the food doesn’t contain animals or animal products. Over the past few years, I even learned about things that I never thought of as animal products like gelatin-free sour cream.

I harp on the allergy thing because it affects me, but someone out there may have a severe allergic reaction to beef or chicken… and if the stock was made from fish or shellfish and someone lied to me about it… well, I might not be around to complain.

I just can’t imagine that in this day and age that anyone would think lying about something like this was acceptable.

What You Don’t Want to Know
Now that I’ve worked in a restaurant, I never ask for lemon in a drink. Everybody touches them. Nobody washes them. We just peel the stickers off, cut them up, and throw them in your iced tea.
—Charity Ohlund, Kansas City waitress

Explains why I’ve gotten so many lemons with stickers on them in my iced teas. Aren’t there health codes or inspectors out there? I’m vehemently against big(er) government, but I would gladly pay higher taxes for inspections to be more frequent and with higher penalties. In fact… I’ll sign up to do them at an incredibly reasonable price.

Skim milk is gross, but… Again, why with the dishonesty? Why not just tell people you don’t have skim milk, then let them make the decision if they want it or not? I’d leave a bigger tip if my server was honest with me about something like that.

What Drives Us Crazy
The single greatest way to get your waiter to hate you? Ask for hot tea. For some reason, an industry that’s managed to streamline everything else hasn’t been able to streamline that. You’ve got to get a pot, boil the water, get the lemons, get the honey, bring a cup and spoon. It’s a lot of work for little reward.
—Christopher Fehlinger, maître d’ at a popular New York City restaurant

Wow. I love hot tea, but don’t order it out much. From now on, every time I feel a waiter or waitress is treating me poorly, I’ll be sure to add to their aggravation and order this. Also, I find it funny that this is from a maître d’. Shouldn’t they be held to an even higher standard? And again… I don’t care what it is… if it’s on the menu, I should be able to order it, and it should not affect your attitude or opinion because…buh-bahhh… IT’SYOURJOB.

What We Want You to Know
In many restaurants, the tips are pooled, so if you have a bad experience with the server, you’re stiffing the bartender who made your drinks, the water boy who poured your water, sometimes the hostess, the food runners, and maybe the other waiters.
—Christopher Fehlinger

This isn’t common knowledge by now? Surely everyone knows someone who works at a restaurant.

What You Need to Know About Tipping
The best tippers tend to be middle-class or people who have worked for everything they have, not the really wealthy or the kid who inherited the trust fund. Which is not to say that we mind if you use coupons. But when you do, tip on the amount the bill would have been without them.
—Judi Santana

Makes sense… people at about your level who work for all that they have. The coupon thing makes sense. Save a few bucks on the restaurant’s dime, not your server’s.

People just love them some communities. I mean, they must. After my Reader’s Digest piece was picked up by both the Today show and Msnbc.com, the “food allergy community” opened up a peanut and gluten-free can of whoop ass on me. Some scolded me for not caring if their children died, others asked for a full retraction and apology to the community, and others reminded me, again, that they could die.

Who knew there was a food allergy community? Can you imagine the poor restaurant that is chosen for their weekly meetings? The waitress nervously approaches the chef with an order the size of the Bible with all the special notes and codes and the words “COULD DIE!!!” hand written on half the tickets.

I’m disgusted by the cavalier attitude here. I can’t imagine being a parent with a small child that had to deal with this. It’s bad enough when it’s my own problem. Yes, there’s a bunch of us out here, and we’re growing more vocal day by day. Why? Any more, it’s the small groups who have to power. Wait until we start referring to ourselves ans a minority, and our right to eat out in comfort a civil right. Wow, could we ever abuse that if we got it out at the right place and time to the right politicians.

I have dealt with a lot of food allergies in my serving career, and I care, I really do. Every case was handled with extreme care. I would go talk to the chef, who would roll his eyes and then have to stop the line and talk to every cook. I then had to stop and tell every other server, busser, and assistant to make sure not to touch any plates at table 53 without washing their hands of any and all potential allergens. She could die! Meanwhile, the restaurant is completely packed and crazy and this person has put her LIFE in my hands and I have to trust – no, SHE has to trust – that all 95 people who could possibly come in contact with her or her food will completely sanitize their hands, the silverware, the plates, and the very air she breathes of any and all peanut dust.

A chef rolls their eyes? That’s sad. I think they’d get into the business wanting people to love their food, not die from it. Sadly, in with the rest of this, she’s right on. It should not be solely the responsibility of the server. Restaurants everywhere need to be made aware of the inherent dangers of cross contamination in food preparation, cooking, & serving. People suffering from severe food allergies are a small percentage of the population, narrow down the allergy & it’s smaller still. I run into people that aren’t aware of allergies or their possible severity all the time. Some people are taking steps to correct this, many others will be needed to join in & raise awareness.

But it’s too much for you, allergen sufferer, isn’t it? I mean, if you could truly die, how do you throw caution to the wind and hope that your 12 reminders have done the trick? Balls, you.

Yes, balls me. Again, you have to weigh this against the social pressure to dine out, and desire to be like everyone else. It’s much more than just the allergy that’s bothersome, and who doesn’t like to dine out every once in a while, especially in a place that doesn’t have a drive-through or a mascot?

That blog contained a vlog from this guy, who at best needs kicked in the teeth. I can’t really go point-for-point because I don’t really feel like typing out transcripts. If you’re interested in seeing what I mean, check out Would You Say “No Butter” to Julia Child!?. He speaks of how I shouldn’t eat out because I can’t trust anyone but him… even though he’s an ass. He does make one good point saying that people saying they’re allergic to things when they just don’t want them in their food is doing nothing but trivializing it for the rest of us. But, “Anonymous waiter in Hollywood, CA”, don’t pass the buck, you’re still the arrogant bastard here. Yes, I get it, you say things for shock value and to gain new readers… like I just said you need kicked in the teeth. I’m sure you’re fine with that though, & enjoy the reaction. If you’re teaching us to be better customers, who’s teaching you to be a better waiter?

Apparently people complaining upset the “In The Weeds” writer, and she posted another blog, again venting…

1) From Shellshock: “Wow. The author is going to kill someone with the attitude towards allergies. I guess the terms anaphylactic shock and death are words not found in the author’s vocabulary.”

I covered the topic of food allergies already, but again, if you can DIE from someone messing up your food, you might as well ask your waitress to perform your next open heart surgery. It’s really the same risk. I’m not insensitive to your plight. I’ll do my best. But it really sucks that you could die. Because if the Mexican kitchen workers don’t understand what I’m saying about “anaphylactic shock”…. damn.

Again, why not do your part and suggest to the owner/manager/chef that everyone be trained on food allergy awareness? No one’s asking you to perform open heart surgery… we’re just asking you to be clean. That’s all. Don’t let dirty stuff touch clean stuff. Shouldn’t that be in practice anyway?

To prevent allergic reactions, individuals with food allergies rely on accurate ingredient information and safe food handling procedures. The material in this section will provide food industry and service professionals with the information they will need to safely prepare, cook, and serve food to a guest who has food allergies.

Would that really be all that difficult?

Well, maybe I have one more blog left. One dedicated to tipping… and my take on it. I really hope to hear from some people in the industry about that one.

Note: I started writing this the other day, and got to a point tonight where it’s so wordy that I’d like it to simply serve as a background to the next blog to show you where I’m coming from, or as the first part to a sort of “To be continued…”

So, Sunday night we had just come home from our 3rd day of Christmas celebration in a row. Needless to say, we were in a great mood, but pretty tired. I got online to check my email and see what was up in the world of Facebook, and Yahoo! pointed me to an interesting article from Reader’s Digest that made me wretch in horror and disgust. This also pointed to several other articles and blogs around the web that divulge the disgusting inexcusable practices of the people who handle your food daily.

Granted, the actions & situations described are certainly not representative of the majority of your wait staff, servers, managers, cooks, chefs, etc. out there… but I find any number of this kind of attitude and described behaviors to be unacceptable. I was so flustered, I decided to pop some things up on an old message board just so I could sort them out later. I’m not even sure I’m at a point where they’re all sorted out, but I wanted to get writing while this was still somewhat of a fresh topic to me. This was initially just an allergy issue to me, but several other side issues have popped up upon further review. Please, bear with me if I jump form subject to subject before I try to reel it all in.

Generally, I’d like to think that my blogs are mostly amusing… any complaining is usually done within the context of humor, and only marginally serious. I have used this & other platforms to comment on the state of customer service in the food industry before… generally at the “bottom rung” of fast food places as this is where I usually end up due to dietary needs (no shellfish) and budget issues.

This one, however, is serious to me… and I hope I don’t come off as just ranting, and that the seriousness of these issues is conveyed.

If you know me in person, have dined out with me, or have ready any of my lunacy online… you most likely know what I have a severe shellfish allergy. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that I can’t eat any shellfish, or I go into anaphylactic shock. Not only can I not eat the shellfish (that’s crustaceans & molluscs including but not limited to ,shrimp, prawns, lobster, crab, crayfish, oysters, mussels, clams, scallops, octopi, squid, snails, and probably even scorpions and pill bugs), but I can’t eat any food that comes into contact with it. That means, if you cook shrimp on the grill, take it off, and put my steak on without washing the surface, it’s the same as me eating the shrimp.

I certainly can’t expect the restaurant to clean the grill in between every meal, as that’s certainly not productive on their end… I just usually try to see where the shellfish is prepared, and eat from another cooking surface. That seems easy enough, right?

I get that it’s my responsibility. Yes, I’ve had an epi pen. But I’d really love to not ever have the need to use one. I’ve even considered getting Allergy Cards, but they seem a little pretentious or something… like my verbal reminder isn’t enough.

Well, getting me in to a place with shellfish is an issue in itself. Why? Well in with the aforementioned cooking surface issue… there’s just all kinds of stuff that can run through one’s head. Like not washing a knife when it cuts one thing then another, shares spaces in refrigerators where things may drip on to other things, places where you might grab pizza toppings like crab meat or shrimp without washing your hands before dipping into the next topping, a friend of mine has even told me he had a piece of shrimp show up in his scrambled eggs at an IHOP once… and I believe the same friend even told me that they had a long and heated argument with the servers at a Chinese place where the ‘vegetarian’ eggs rolls contained crab because “crab is not meat”. Oops… Death! (Usually I sadly avoid any Chinese places anyway because of the shared cooking surfaces & probably delicious sauces that can be made with oysters or ground brine shrimp.) This basically makes me never able to completely relax in a restaurant where I’m supposed to be out enjoying myself… it’s an odd paradox.

Generally I can find a safe dish if pressed, and especially if I call ahead… but I need to be in an adventurous mood.

Dining out is an important social activity… a very common social activity that brings with it high levels of anxiety for someone like myself. Not only from the aforementioned game of Russian Roulette Kitchen Edition, but from explaining my allergy to people. Yes, anxiety from explaining to friends, family, business associates, your server, and anyone else who may inquire as to why you don’t want to try a great new seafood place or even Red Lobster or Long John Silver’s. Not only can it be embarrassing where it really shouldn’t be… but it inevitable goes down something like this…

Not me: “Let’s go to T.G.I. Friday’s”

Me: “Well, I can’t really eat much there besides a salad or a baked potato.”

Not me: “Huh?” [Looking at me like I’m an alien.]

Me: “Well, I have a severe shellfish allergy. I can’t eat anything like shrimp or lobster, or any cooking surfaces that it touches”

Not me: “Oh, well just don’t order any.”

Me: “Well, that’s not enough. I’ve had a trip to the hospital just from eating onion rings fried in the same fryer as shrimp. If they have grilled shrimp, I can’t get anythign off of the grill… if they have fried shrimp, I can’t get anything out of the fryer.”

Not me: “Well, can you get steak?”

Me: “No, they probably make that on a grill.”

Not me: “Well, can’t you get chicken?”

[Mind you, I have ad this conversation with seemingly intelligent reasonable people.]

Me: “Well, no… if it’s grilled, well… we covered that, and if it’s fried… that’s a no go either.”

Not me: “Well, that sucks. What about … [Names 400 other restaurants, all with prominent shellfish dishes on the menu]… I don’t think they have any shellfish.”

Not me: “Well, that’s just stupid. I’ve never heard of that.” or “There’s no such thing as food allergies.”

Yes, because you have never heard of it, I must be wrong. Off to Joe’s Crab Shack!

Not me: “My uncle Jim’s wife’s neighbor’s cousin’s roomate’s gerbil’s vet’s dry cleaner’s podiatrist was allergic to jelly beans, and he ate a quarter of a jelly bean and swelled up and went to the hospital and stuff and just kept eating bigger pieces until he built up a tolerance”.

Not me: “Have you tried it lately? My mechanic’s wife’s niece’s ex-husband had a neighbor who outgrew his allergy to strawberries.”

First off, this type of behavior is stupid… even if the story is real. It is possible to build up tolerances (allergy shots), and to outgrow allergies… I am well aware of my limitations and have been told by more than one allergy doctor that my allergy is to great to attempt allergy shots and that I’ll never outgrow it.

My favorite comes from family & old friends…

Not me: “You used to eat at Long John Silver’s! You can’t be that allergic.”

I know. It’s WEIRD. I get it. Believe me, I get it. I ate shrimp like a madman when I was young, and each exposure to shellfish since I discovered the allergy kind of seems like the bee sting thing to me, each “attack” gets worse. After the last one… I don’t want another one. But science seems to lean toward this being more random and not a straight road to a deadly end. I really don’t want to be the guy to solve/prove that one.

And, please… if I do go to a restaurant to eat out with you… don’t orders shrimp or lobster and ask me if it’s OK. Every fiber of my being is screaming “No, it’s not OK. What are you, a psychopathic masochist that’s into mental torture?” while I tell you it won’t bother me. Again, clearly my own demon to wrestle with… but really, do you want to be that person?

Still, I feel pressure all the time to just go with the flow, deal with it, and order a salad. Believe me, a salad more often may be a good idea in my case. It’s still just not an enjoyable or relaxing thing for me at that point. We may be conversing, but I’m obsessing over every unidentifiable piece of everything in the dressing and really not processing much of what you’re saying. Imagine that I told you there’s a box of rat poison in the kitchen right on the shelf between the flour and the sugar, they’re all in identical unmarked jars and there’s only one scoop used in all of ’em. Do you wanna eat there?

This is really just to show you where I’m coming from. I realize that it’s not your problem. I realize that I have some real issues to deal with surrounding my problem. I realize that this is not a terminal illness or anything that serious. I’m not trying to get a pity party going for myself. This is simply to let you know what’s bouncing around in my mind.

It hopefully won’t be long until my next not-unrelated blog… basically pulling quotes form the aforementioned articles and responding one by one.

I’d really like to hear everyone’s opinions of my rant here… am I out of line? Over-dramatic? Illustrative? Insane? Do you think like me? Do you have an allergy?